Stars and Fires
by Simon Creed
Summary: This fic is a little different from the last two. Read it and tell me what you think!!


Hey everyone, this story is a little different from the last two. I wanted to see if I could write a fic without any fight scenes or anything, so here it is! They might be a little bit OOC, but it is a little bit more serious than the others. Tell me what you think!!  
  
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"Stars and Fires"  
Simon Creed  
  
  
The two sat around their campfire. The previous days travels took them far away from any towns. Both were tired, so talk between them was unusually scarce. Manji had been able to catch a few fish in the nearby stream, and compared to what they had been eating over the last couple of days, it were a real treat.   
  
They finished eating relatively quickly, and both simply sat staring at the fire. Flames danced around in Rin's big, glossy eyes. Manji noticed, but said nothing.   
  
Rin decided to break the silence. "Manji," she asked, looking directly at him, "what's it like being immortal?"  
  
"Truthfully?"  
  
"..."  
  
"I hate it."  
  
Rin lowered her gaze back to the fire. She should have known better than to ask such a question.   
  
The flames once again took control of her eyes, and her eyes took control of Manji's.  
  
The silence that followed was strange. It was neither uncomfortable nor relaxing.   
  
"It's horrible." His words came from thin air. "I am a samurai," he said. "Or at least I was..." He lowered his stare to the ground. He sat hunched over, elbows resting on his knees. "My form, it's horrible now, like I depend on my immortality. And what honor can one gain from fighting if he can't be killed? It's a curse that I wished upon myself."  
  
'At least he's talking,' Rin thought. " What do you mean?"  
  
"Are you sure you want to know?"  
  
She nodded her head.  
  
"Ever since I was a child, I have always wanted to be the best. At everything. My ambition, pretty much took control of me." He sat silent for a second. "Rin...I've never really told anyone all of this before."  
  
"That's okay. You're my friend now, and that's all I care about!" she said with a smile. She meant it. Manji was her family now, and although she would have liked to have known more, she respected him enough that she didn't have to.   
  
"No, that's not what I meant...It feels good telling someone. You, it feels good telling you." He grasped his sheathed sword in his hand. "This blade and I have killed many people. Some bad, some good. None of which I actually knew. Few of which were actually my enemies. But because of it, my sister is dead. And I killed her. I killed her husband."  
  
Rin had partly heard this story before from the little, old lady, but she had never heard Manji actually mention it.  
  
"I killed her husband right before her eyes. It pretty much drove her crazy. She started acting like a child again. She couldn't handle the present, so her mind took her back to happier times I guess."  
  
He stopped talking for a second and looked up to the night sky. He figured he was looking up at the same stars that his sister was gazing down upon from the heavens. Maybe some kind of double meaning, he thought.  
  
"She was kidnapped, and later on killed by a band of thugs right before my eyes. Like I said, it was my fault."  
  
"You can't blame yourself," Rin said. "You weren't the one who killed her, and you righted it the best that you could."  
  
"You don't understand!! You can't right someone's death by killing someone else!! Yes, killing him satisfied me for a time, but it will never bring my sister back! I will never see her again! I do what I do because I have to - I have no other choice. To make up for my sister's death I must kill one thousand freakin' bad guys! Say I do become mortal after it all? Could you live with yourself knowing that you had killed over a thousand people?! Nothing could ever possibly wash away all the blood!"  
  
For once in her life, Rin was speechless.   
  
Manji lowered his eyes to the ground, then raised them to the stars. He hadn't noticed that Rin had gotten up and sat down next to him until he felt her arms wrap around him in a hug.   
  
"It's okay, honorable brother..."  
  
  
  
The End  
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Well, what did you guys think? Better than the last? I hope so! I'm not sure if I'm gonna keep writing these on a regular basis 'cause I'm not real good at it, but I'll make sure to do one every once in a while! 


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